Difference Between 8KHA and +

[Cole]

I was about to pick up one of these boards and ran into some confusion and/or misleading advertisements on pricewatch. I was under the impression that the 8KHA+ simply added RAID to the original board. Then I read at HOCP that the 8KHA+ uses a revision of the KT266 chipset. While searching pricewatch I see some ads that say "8KHA+ KT266..." while others say "8KHA KT266A" etc. etc. So what's the real deal here - is the + model using a newer revision of the chipset? How can I definitely tell what I'm buying since some ads say 8KHA without the plus but also have KT266A listed?

[Jon]

Ads are screwy. 8KHA is the older KT266 chipset and the 8KHA+ is the newer KT266a chipset...the one you want to make sure you're getting.

[fireball_87]

exactly what jon said and btw: neather of them have raid.

[Cole]

Thanks guys - sounds like going back to the old days of asking for a specific stepping of cpu over the phone. I can see it now "IS this a + or not.....!!??"

[Phiber]

they cant make it anymore confusing can they?

[EPoX Tech]

Exact differences are :

8KHA and 8KHA+ use exactly the same PCB.

8KHA+ uses the same audio codec chip found on revision 1.3 of 8KHA, different to that of rev 1.0,1.1 and 1.2 of 8KHA.

8KHA+ uses an ICS PLL, 8KHA doesn't (although the ufnctionality of the two PLL's is similar and allows for the two chips to use the same PCB).

8KHA+ uses 8366a (KT266a) whereas 8KHA uses 8366 (KT266).

Due to the fact that the PLL is different, the 8KHA+ BIOS is different, if 8KHA+ had kept the same PLL as 8KHA, the BIOS would have remained. Note that official 8KHA+ BIOS filenames start 8khi****.bin with the "i" indicating the ICS PLL.